Mordachus
Mordachus was a Jedicon from the Altarin'Dakor galaxy who rose to become a Shok'Thola. This made him one of the youngest on the Council, along with Calvernic, who was also raised around the same time. Mordachus was also one of the most aggressive in pursuing the Return. He led one failed assault into the galaxy 200 years before the Return was officially approved and ordered, an action with lost him face with the others. He continued to meddle in the Return, however, until he was killed by Strife shortly after the defeat of Kronos and the Battle of Mizar. History Born sometime around 5,000 BBY, Mordachus seemed destined to become a Shok'Thola almost from the beginning. A powerful Jedicon warrior, he devoted himself to the Return with fanatical obsession, and rose through the ranks very quickly. Using a combination of cunning plots and brute strength, he replaced his commanding officers one by one until he was a Kodonn'Dakor serving under the Warlord Akargan. He then distinguished himself in several notable conflicts and survived harrowing assassination attempts by his subordinates, until he was one of the top five Jedicon serving under the Warlord. At that point, Akargan was feuding over a large tract of space that was also claimed by the Shok'Thola Nimrod. During a critical point in the conflict, Mordachus saw his chance and staged a coup that eliminated all four of his opponents. In his ambition, he thought to make himself Akargan's second in command and become sponsored to become Shok'Thola, but he underestimated his master's ire. Akargan set out to kill his top Kodonn'Dakor, but in a brilliant move, Nimrod sent his most elite Jedicon to rescue Mordachus. He then took the Jedicon straight to Altima and sponsored him to become a Warlord in Akargan's place. He then seeded the territory in question to Mordachus, creating a buffer between him and Akargan and gaining a large strategic victory over his rival. Mordachus and Akargan, of course, remained bitter rivals from that point onward. The Return Mordachus continued his fanatical drive to further the Return, perhaps more so than any other Warlord. He situated himself so that some of his forces went through when the Galactic Gate was built, and helped take territory on the other side while its counterpart was under construction. Failed Start Mordachus knew he he had little chance of winning the contest to become Spearhead of the Return, so around 200 BBY, long before the return Galactic Gate was completed, he decided to act. Once more showing his impulsive character, he risked defying Altima and the others by secretly boarding a transport and sending himself through ahead of the other Shok'Thola, planning to preempt the entire contest and take the lead himself. From there, he led a small contingent of forces around the galactic disk to strike from the other side, hoping to gain early victories there and establish a safe haven there that would not be overrun by the others. Mordachus and his forces found themselves in an area of space known as the Centrality, which was sparsely populated but nevertheless held a number of valuable worlds. They discovered the lush planet of Renastatia and, deciding that it would make a good staging base from which to spread outward from, they attacked. Their overwhelming superiority in technology allowed them to quickly overwhelm the Renastatians, but in the main battle for the Renastatian capital something went horribly wrong for Mordachus. Overwhelmed by the excitement of the Return and filled with a lust for glory, Mordachus entered the battle himself and began to slaughter his opponents. All was well until he faced a desperate young man named Jacob Skipper. Faced with death, Skipper's latent Force abilities abruptly awakened and he unleashed a barrage of flame from his hands that immolated the unprepared Mordachus, killing him. The rest of his forces, shocked into disarray and leaderless, retreated and had no choice but to return home. Second Failure and Final Demise Mordachus revived himself in the Altarin'Dakor galaxy, only to find himself in serious trouble with the Shok'Thola council. The next few decades saw major sanctions and loss of territory to other Warlords. Mordachus knew that he now had no chance of becoming one of the top Shok'Thola. He faded into the background for the next century or so. After the death of Kronos, the Warlords and the structure of the Return was thrown into disarray. Virtually all of the Warlords expressed their intentions to attack, all at once. At this point, with little left to lose, Mordachus gambled again. He took some of his remaining forces through the Gate again, jumped to Epsilon Sector and set up a base in the Mizar System, in the asteroid belt that was all that remained of the second planet. From there he planned attacks against the New Imperium, but he was utterly surprised when Jedi Master Nico Flygras, who had barely survived the destruction of his ship in the Battle of Mizar, suddenly appeared at his base. Taking the unconscious man into his custody, Mordachus proceeded to use Compulsion and brainwashing to subvert the Jedi and create a sleeper cell within him that would do his bidding. However, just as his forces were finishing, a team of Jedi from the New Imperium arrived, foiled the Warlord's plan, and rescued Nico. Mordachus' work, however, would not go without fruition; another Shok'Thola named Queklain, who had been revived from imprisonment since the Great War and was hiding within the New Imperium, found Nico and put him to his own use. After yet another failure, Mordachus was left without a clear plan with which to continue his campaign. Deciding it was time to end the risk of further interference from Mordachus' impulsive decisions, Altima secretly contacted the Shok'Thola Strife and ordered him to kill the wayward Warlord. Strife traveled to Mordachus' hideout in the Mizar System, where he confronted Mordachus and easily dispatched him for the last time. Strife then claimed all of the younger Warlord's resources, territories and ships as his own. Personality and Traits Mordachus was dark and brooding and everything one would expect in an evil tyrant. His impulsiveness and reckless behavior might have gained him early glory and earned him the position of Shok'Thola, but in the end it was his undoing. He held smaller territories than most of the major Warlords, like his colleague Calvernic, and had little influence on major decisions relating to the Altarin'Dakor as a whole. He was tall and dark-haired, and his power level was in the mid-range for a Warlord, somewhere around 250,000.